Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

56 Kristin Bech
3.1 Existential verbs in the XVS pattern
The first feature to be discussed is the distribution of existential verbs in the
XVS non-coordinate clauses vs. coordinate clauses. As the tables show, in OE
the coordinate clause category has a higher proportion of existential verbs than
the non-coordinate clause category, whereas it is the opposite in ME, with an
especially pronounced difference between the two clause types in late ME. In
early OE and late ME the difference between non-coordinate and coordinate
clauses is statistically significant, whereas in late OE and early ME it is not. 6
If we take a closer look at the individual texts and start with the early OE
period, it appears that one of the texts, Orosius, contains 16 out of the 20 existential
coordinate clauses. They all occur in Book I, chapter I, which contains
the tale of the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, as well as a description of
Greece and Italy. This text is thus descriptive, and in that way lends itself well
to existential constructions, and it is descriptive in an enumerative way, which
also explains the use of coordination. An example is given in (6):
(6) 7 on suðhealfe 7 on westhealfe þæs muðan sindon Mæsi, Creca leode – 7 be westan
þære byrig sindon Traci
and on the-south-side and on the-west-side of-the-mouth are the-Moesians,
of-Greeks people – and on the-west of-the city are the-Thracians
“and on the south and on the west side of the mouth are the Moesians, a Greek
tribe, and on the west of the city are the Thracians” (Or 18: 9)
In the late OE texts, it turns out that 10 out of the 16 existential coordinate
clauses occur in Wulfstan’s Homilies, most of them of the kind exemplified in (7):
(7) 7 of þære mægðe com se mæra mann Abraham
and from that tribe came the famous man Abraham
“and from that tribe the famous man Abraham came” (WHom 148: 99)
In Wulfstan, however, the existential clauses do not occur in one particular
part of the text, but throughout the text, and we may note that they occur in contexts
where coordination is natural, since the initial adverbial refers anaphorically
to a constituent in the previous discourse.
As the examples from Orosius and Wulfstan demonstrate, certain textual,
genre-specific features may have consequences for the distribution when the
number of tokens is relatively small. Hence, we cannot draw any firm conclusions
about the general linguistic picture, but will have to content ourselves
with postulating ‘tendencies’ and ‘indications’. One conclusion that may be
drawn, however, is that in OE, the distribution of existential verbs in the XVS
6. Late OE: chi-square value = 3.416, p ≈ 0.07; early ME: chi-square value = 1.74, p ≈ 0.19.